The word "dialect" means something different when applied to Chinese than it does for most other languages. Chinese "dialects" have not only widely diverging pronunciations of the same words, but also use different words for expressing the same thing, and different grammar such as different word order. As a result, different Chinese dialects can be mutually unintelligible. The difference between one dialect and another can be as small as that between, say, Spanish and Portuguese, or as large as that between German and English. Meanwhile, there are different variations of the Cantonese dialect that differ greatly from one another. For example, the Cantonese spoken in the far west of Guangdong province (eg. Taishan) is hardly or not at all intelligible to a native of Guangzhou city.

Speakers of all Chinese varieties do, in general, use the same characters in reading and writing. Written language is more formal and closer to standard Mandarin Póutūngwáh (Mandarin), even when used by Cantonese speakers. Oral Cantonese contains many words for which there has traditionally not existed a written form. In recent decades, however, characters for many of these words have been created, chiefly by the Hong Kong popular printed media such as newspapers and magazines. It should be noted that the different Cantonese-speaking communities use one of two different forms of writing: in Hong Kong, Macau, Malaysia and many overseas Chinese communities, traditional Chinese characters are in use, whereas the Cantonese-speaking communities in mainland China's Guangdong province as well as Singapore use simplified Chinese characters.

In many cases the regional varieties are not clearly regionalised but vary gradually across a region. Thus linguists can identify anywhere between seven and seventeen separate Chinese languages where the speakers of different dialects are mutually unintelligible. This list is based on the Cantonese spoken in Guangzhou. Note that the Cantonese spoken in Hong Kong and Macau differ slightly due to Western influences, though standard Cantonese as spoken in Guangzhou would be understood by everyone. The Cantonese spoken in Singapore and Malaysia also differ slightly due to Malay influences.

Some of the phrases in the list cannot be translated from English to Cantonese.

Pronunciation guide

The pronunciations given in this guidebook use the Yale Romanization system. Sounds can only be approximated at best using romanisation. This guide gives a general indication of the correct sound to make, but the best way to be completely accurate is to listen closely to native speakers and mimic the sounds they make.

Consonants

Yale

Pronunciation

b

b in "ball"

p

p as in "pat"

m

m as in "mom"

f

f as in "foot"

d

d in "dog"

t

t as in "top"

n

n as in "not"

l

l as in "lap"

g

g in "good"

k

k as in "kite"

ng

ng as in "singer"

h

h as in "hot"

j

blend of the z in "Mozart" and the j in "judge"

ch

blend of the ts in "cats" and the ch in "church"

s

s as in "sleep"

gw

gw as in "hogwash"

kw

qu as in "quark"

y

y as in "yard"

w

w as in "want"

Finals

The final consonants p, t, and k are unreleased. This means that they are virtually silent and you hear no "puff of air" at the end of the syllable.

Yale

Pronunciation

aa

a as in "spa"

aai

igh as in "sigh"

aau

ow as in "how"

aam

am as in "Vietnam"

aan

awn as in "pawn"

aang

combination of aa and ng

aap

op as in "opt"

aat

ought as in "ought"

aak

alk as in "talk"

ai

i as in "kite"

au

ou as in "scout"

am

ome as in "some"

an

un as in "sun"

ang

ung as in "lung"

ap

up as in "cup"

at

ut as in "cut"

ak

uc as in "suck"

e

e as in "bet"

ei

ay as in "say"

em

em as in "temple"

eng

eng as in "penguin"

ek

eck as in "peck"

i

ee as in "tee"

iu

ew as in "few"

im

eem as in "seem"

in

een as in "seen"

ing

ing as in "sing"

ip

eep as in "sleep"

it

eet as in "meet"

ik

ick as in "sick"

o

aw as in "paw" (British English)

oi

oy as in "boy"

ou

oe as in "toe"

on

orn as in "scorn" (British English)

ong

ong as in "song" (British English)

ot

ot as in "hot" (British English)

ok

ock as in "stock" (British English)

u

oo as in "coo"

ui

ooey as in "gooey"

un

oon as in "soon"

ung

combination of ou and ng

ut

oot as in "boot"

uk

oke as in "joke"

eu

er as in "her" (Britsh English, with rounded lips)

eung

combination of eu and ng

euk

ork as in "work" (British English)

eui

eui as in "deuil" (French)

eun

ine as in "engine"

eut

ut as in "put"

yu

u as in "tu" (French)

yun

un as in "union"

yut

Ut as in "Utah"

m

mm as in "hmm"

ng

ng as in "sing"

Tones

Cantonese is a tonal language. This means that the same syllable, pronounced in a different tone, has a different meaning. To complicate this, there may be more than one character pronounced as the same syllable with the same tone (though this is uncommon). In this case, context usually helps resolve the ambiguity. This may sound daunting, but is in fact is better than say, English, where there are a great deal of words that are spoken identically (eg. their, there, they're) and have nothing but context to help determine which one it is. Cantonese has context and tone to help distinguish words.

Different variations of the Cantonese dialect have a different number of tones, from as few as six to as many as ten or more. Most speakers, however, and all modern linguistic interpretations get by with being able to distinguish (both in spoken and heard Cantonese) between the following six tones:

Yale

Description

Alternative Notation

Start to End Pitch

ā, à

high level or high falling

1

55 or 53

á

mid rising

2

35

a

mid level

3

33

àh

low falling

4

21

áh

low rising

5

23

ah

low level

6

22

The tonal pronunciation of Cantonese is by far the most difficult aspect of the often daunting language. The very minor initial difficulty in learning the tones is sometimes more than made up for by simple grammar, and absence of almost all plurals, genders, tenses and forms that make many other world languages seem difficult by comparison.

Colors

black

黑色 hāk sīk

white

白色 baahk sīk

gray

灰色 fūi sīk

red

紅色 hùhng sīk

blue

藍色 làahm̀ sīk

yellow

黃色 wòhng sīk

green

綠色 luhk sīk

orange

橙色 chàahng sīk

purple

紫色 jí sīk

brown

啡色 fē sīk

Transportation

Bus and train

In Cantonese, "train" is translated into 火車 (fóchē) and "bus" is 巴士 (bāsí). The language uses measure words or numeral classifiers before the actual nouns. In context of the following examples, the respective Cantonese measure words for 火車 and 巴士 are 班 (bāan) and 架 (ga).